The Story of Bruges

by Ernest Gilliat-Smith

His career as a soldier, too, was not inglorious. He made successful war on the French King and wrested from him the greater part of the province of Artois, and his brilliant action in the East led to the fall of Constantinople and to his own election to the throne of the Greek Empire; but the glory of his purple robe, and the glory of his sword, and the glory of his achievements as a citizen and a prince, pale before the weird legend of love and crime and Nemesis which chronicles his latter days. It reads like a fairy tale and comes to us on the authority of the last and greatest of our monastic historians: Matthew Paris, the famous scribe of St. Alban’s.

On the morrow of Ash Wednesday, 1199, a great multitude thronged the Church of St. Donatian’s at Bruges. Count Baldwin was to take the cross. The scene in the old church, old even in those days, was a solemn and a striking one. Within those walls which had witnessed so many tragedies and stirring deeds was gathered the élite of Flanders—the flower of Flemish chivalry was there, the household of the sovereign and of his consort, Marie of Champagne, and a host of wealthy citizens in holiday attire. Ranged on each side of the altar stood the famous canons of Bruges, in their long white linen rochets and purple veils, in front of them two choirs of singing boys from St. Donatian’s school. The great bell tolled as if for a funeral, perhaps that same great bell which five centuries later fell from its lofty tower, and for fifty years lay buried beneath the débris of the cathedral, and now sends forth its melodious voice from the steeple of Notre Dame.

‘O God, the heathen are come into Thine heritage, Thy Holy Temple have they defiled. Jerusalem is an heap of stones.... Help us, O God of our Salvation and for the glory of Thy Name deliver us, lest haply they should say among the Gentiles, where is now their God.’

Thus plaintively the first choir, and then with a shout of triumph the men and boys on the opposite side of the chancel made response:—

‘Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Him flee before His face. Like as smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away, and as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.’

‘Receive this symbol,’ murmured the Archbishop of Tournai as he fastened to Baldwin’s breast a white linen cross embroidered with threads of gold, ‘receive this symbol in memory of the Passion of Jesus Christ, and of the cross on which He died.’ When Marie of Champagne besought the aged prelate to place also on her breast the Crusaders’ sign, a shout of admiration, and perhaps too of dismay, burst from the crowd. Marie was so tender and so beautiful, and the way of the Cross was so hard—pray God that her end be not like that of the ill-fated Countess Sybil.

Baldwin set out for the East in the spring of 1203, Marie, who was then laid by in childbed, followed towards the close of the month, but she never saw her husband again. It happened thus. That shrewd old fox, Dandolo of Venice, taking advantage of the poverty of the Crusaders, compelled them to undertake for him a campaign against Zara, by way of payment for their transport to Palestine. Then came the conquest of Constantinople and the founding of the Latin Empire, and the elevation of Baldwin himself to the imperial throne (April 9, 1204). Meanwhile Marie had gone on to Syria and was there awaiting her lord. Presently, with the summer heat, plague swept the land, and Marie herself fell sick. When she was lying at death’s door, the news of Baldwin’s good fortune reached the town, and it was perhaps in reply to some inquiry of hers as to the cause of his long tarrying, that her attendants informed her that the erst Count of Flanders was now Emperor of Rome, and then the end came.

Baldwin was now at the zenith of his glory. From a petty tributary chief of a tribe of semi-barbarians, he had been raised to the throne of a great and civilized empire; but the tide of fortune was soon to turn, and Marie’s death was the first drop in the bitter chalice that fate was mingling for him. In less than a year the discontent of the Greeks broke out in open rebellion. Joannice of Bulgaria had promised them help, and with a huge army, reinforced by a horde of Tartars, he laid siege to Adrianople. Baldwin marched to relieve the town, and fell wounded, perhaps slain, before its walls. Of what had actually befallen the Emperor nothing was certainly known. Some of his comrades were sure they had seen his dead body, others were equally sure that he had been taken alive. The Bishop of Soissons set out for France to gather funds for ransom. Henry of Flanders had recourse to the good offices of the Pope, who at once sent an embassy to Joannice to treat for Baldwin’s release. Vain request. ‘The Emperor,’ averred the King of the Bulgarians, ‘had paid Nature’s debt—debitum carnis exsoluerat.’

Twenty years later some wood-cutters of Plancques, a village in the heart of the great forest which in those days stretched from Tournai to Valenciennes, discovered in an unfrequented glade, by the banks of a stream, a rude hut of osiers, thatched with turf, which they were sure they had not seen there before. It was the home of a long-bearded, white-haired old man, with a face covered with scars. Of his antecedents they could learn nothing. ‘I am but a poor Christian,’ he said, ‘doing penance for my sins,’ but there was something in his voice and bearing which belied his words. Not a few of the Crusaders, on their return from the East, had put on the black robe of St. Benedict or the brown frock of the poor man of Assisi—some of them were known to have chosen a solitary life, and to have hidden themselves in forests or caves, and the village gossips, over their ale, whispered to one another that of these the mysterious hermit was surely one. The peasant folk from the neighbouring villages flocked out to visit him; some of them had in their youth set eyes on the hero of Constantinople, and these men were convinced that, in the garb of a poor recluse, they now beheld him again, and presently it was noised abroad that Baldwin had come back to Flanders. At length the rumour reached the ears of a former comrade-in-arms, a friend who had known him well, Everard de Montagne, the powerful Lord of Glançon. He at once set out for the hermit’s cell, saw the old man, and was convinced of his identity—so too Sohier of Enghien, Arnulph of Gavre, Bourchard d’Avesnes (the ill-fated husband of Baldwin’s daughter, the future Countess Marguerite), and a hundred others who had been intimate with him. But the hermit would vouchsafe no answer, and when they pressed him, returned only evasive replies. ‘Are ye, then, like the Breton folk,’ he said, ‘who still look for the coming of Arthur?’ Presently a deputation of citizens went out to the hermitage from Valenciennes; they greeted him with shouts of acclamation. ‘Thou art our Count, thou art our Count!’ they cried, and, in spite of the old man’s protest, they carried him back with them to the city. Then at last Baldwin declared himself. They had rightly divined his secret; he was indeed the Count of Flanders.

The story of his adventures is a strange one. Wounded at the siege of Adrianople and sick almost to death, he had been taken prisoner by the Bulgarians. During the early days of his captivity a lady of the Court chanced to see him, perhaps the King’s daughter herself. She was interested in his story, he was still young and handsome, and she gave him her heart. The Emperor feigned to reciprocate her passion, and her devotion knew no bounds; to save him, and, for his sake too, his comrades, she was ready to risk her life. A plan of escape was devised. By her aid it was successfully carried out and they all fled together.